The idle musings of a former military man, former computer geek, medically retired pastor and now full-time writer. Contents guaranteed to offend the politically correct and anal-retentive from time to time. My approach to life is that it should be taken with a large helping of laughter, and sufficient firepower to keep it tamed!

Monday, September 7, 2015

Race and gun violence: the non-politically-correct truth

If you try to talk about race as a factor in the criminal use of firearms, every Social Justice Warrior in sight will rush to condemn you, screaming epithets and slogans at the top of their lungs. Nevertheless, it's a very important factor. Guns America has just dared their wrath (and, I think, deserves our thanks) for publishing the results of a survey. It's titled 'The One Gun Violence Statistic that No One Wants to Talk About'. Here's an excerpt.

To quote from a recent Pew Study:“A disproportionate share of gun homicide victims are black (55% in 2010, compared with the 13% black share of the population). Whites were 25% of victims but 65% of the population in 2010. Hispanics were 17% of victims and 16% of the population in 2010.”It should be noted that men and boys make up the vast majority (84% in 2010) of gun homicide victims, as the Pew study reported. To give one an idea on how all that translates, while the No. 1 cause of death is car accidents for adults between the ages of 20 and 24, for black men the No. 1 cause of death is gun violence. Put another way, black males are four times more likely to be fatally shot than die in a car accident, according to the CDC.Compared to their white peers, young black men are five times more likely to be gunned down.

One major problem the African American community faces is gangs. According to an FBI estimate, gangs account for around 13 percent of all homicides annually. Roughly 2,000 gang-related homicides against 15,500 total homicides nationwide between 2007 and 2011. That’s all homicides though, not strictly gun homicides.

. . .

I’m going to do some rough estimates for the sake of simplicity. So, there are 11,000 gun homicides per year, on average, 15 percent or 1,650 of which are gang-related and maybe half of which or 825 involve black people. To put that in perspective, roughly 7.5 percent of the total number of gun homicides per year are black victims as a result of gang violence.

I’m not a social scientist and I’m not 100 percent confident in my math or my rough approximations, but the point I’m trying to make is that black people, specifically, young black men are disproportionately affected by gun violence as a result of gang activity. Forget the numbers for a moment, but if we accept this premise then we can come up with better solutions to solve the problem because arming more good guys won’t directly reduce gang participation (It’s not that I don’t support arming more good guys, I’m all for it, it’s just that as a gang-reducing enterprise I have my doubts about its efficacy) nor will inane policy measures like universal background checks (A recent study showed that criminals don’t typically purchase guns at gun stores, they use straw purchasers, borrow them from friends, steal them, etc.).If we really believe, to use a popular phrase, “Black Lives Matter” then we ought to start having real conversations about how to save black lives. Sure, police brutality is an issue — the main focus of the BLM movement — but it’s not close to being on par with gang violence.

There's more at the link, including more very informative charts. Highly recommended reading.

As a former prison chaplain and visiting chaplain to a couple of law enforcement agencies, I'm here to tell you that those points are absolutely correct. I've seen it myself in everyday life. To assert that 'Black Lives Matter' without dealing with the reality that most black lives lost to criminal violence are lost because of the victims' own bad choices, and usually lost to members of their own race, simply ignores the facts.

I don't know what the answer is . . . or, at least, a politically correct answer. I know there's a practical answer, but it would never be accepted by the Social Justice Warriors, because it takes account of reality rather than their empty-headed social theories.

9 comments:

Simple, but exceedingly difficult to achieve (because of those aforementioned empty-headed SJWs and their social theories they're so desperate to keep), is to do two things.1) Eliminate all welfare payouts to anyone and everyone who is capable of working. No more "Uncle Sugar-Daddy Gubment" taking the place of family provider. SJWs and their supposedly well-meaning programs have absolutely destroyed the black family structure, when nothing else could. We can't rebuild it for them, but we can stop subsidizing the rubble and we can stop paying for them not to rebuild.2) Eliminate abortion. Life is precious from the start, and our easy access to "safe" abortion erodes that value from before birth. Is it any wonder that black lives are spent so cheaply on the street, when black babies are aborted in far greater proportion than any other social group?I'm well aware that by doing these two things, we will hear the angst, wailing, and gnashing of teeth from the Acolytes of the Church of Margaret Sanger, and their priests and priestesses worshipping at the Altar of Eugenics, while wearing the vestments of Progress and Social Justice. But they're the enemy, anyway, and their protestations and accusations are, quite frankly, accolades to be sought by moral people of any religion everywhere.

The historic data shows that intact families is part of the answer. The child's father in the household has a profound stabilizing effect.

The black culture has developed a 'it's someone else fault'/'not responsible for my actions' mind set. The community needs to start holding themselves and each other responsible for their individual behavior. It seems to work in every other ethnic group the world over. I/Whitey can't fix their community problems. The changes have to come from within, one household at a time.

As Kermit alluded to, with more than 50% of black pregnancies being aborted in the few cities that provide that statistic, when combined with the gang activity, it's a voluntary genocide that the likes of Mao, Pol Pot and even Margaret Sanger would envy.

The area the Guns America guys didn't address was black on white crime vs. white on black. Those numbers are beyond astonishing. Far, far out of proportion to what the news media suggests.

Black culture in America is dysfunctional, and it's not a little dysfunctional - it's hugely dysfunctional, directly as a result of 80 years of leftist do-gooder government programs.

Franklin Roosevelt, for the most part, opened the gate, and liberals eagerly began traveling the road so revealed. It's gone from dirt to gravel to asphalt to 6-lane superhighway as government has gotten bigger, more "compassionate", more involved. Government - supported by our tax dollars - has become weaponized by the SJWs, one of their favored tools of the trade, as they remake society to conform with their stilted ideas of A Better Place To Live.

Independence and Achievement are powerful motives toward success; but how do we acomplish spreading those without first crippling the forces of evil that have convinced so many that avoiding them should be a goal?

Some others have figured it out. But like most things, their efforts are grass-roots-oriented and small, and lack the media's prolonged attention, not to mention society's in general (not that it's any of our responsibility to fix the situation).

Take this local pastor who understands that the black populace is doing a terrible job of passing down the good ways of living their ancestors once may have known:

How can people improve the family unit in these people in disarray? Definitely some ways include reducing the crutch of benefits to those undeserving. Reducing abortion perhaps. But those are symptoms of underlying moral and ethical desolation, and probably just as often a result of the intensity of competition for resources (which is becoming worse and worse as more and more people crowd into this rock).

The real point however is to teach family leaders the self-respect and dignity they need to stand up on their own feet and eventually free themselves and their family of the handouts. And once that level has been attained, hopefully they pass down their newly-learned vales to their children.

As you can see, this process will take generations. It's no one's responsibility, or if it is, it's an individual responsibility to answer God's call to act locally within one's means of influence, not all of society's responsibility to pour massive funds into unorganized, mismanaged bureaucratic programs. To those who are inclined, this seems like a good way to go about it, on an individual level. Pass down good ways of living to the next generation. Mentor and economic education programs through the United Way (for example), church ministries, and even shelters have opportunities for people to spread their viewpoints on life, good ways to live, as God tried to pass on to us so long ago.

But at the same time, remember that we are a natural population with limited resources, and there will always be poverty, and therefore crime. It's the teachings of God to live an upright life that keep the poor from turning to crime. But there will always be some.

One of the people we're not supposed to talk about is Daniel Patrick Moynihan and his report on "the Negro family" (1965; just Google "Moynihan Report"). In that report, he called attention to the rising number of illegitimate births (25%) and the relative absence of nuclear families, and predicted that these elements would hinder greater economic and political equality.

So, whenever I see comments like yours about the state of the black community in the US, I think one thing: "Moynihan was right."